


round midnight

by cirrus (themorninglark)



Series: Sportsfest 2018 [32]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Jazz - Freeform, M/M, Sportsfest 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 03:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15572826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/cirrus
Summary: Osamu dusts off the lid of the piano and runs the back of his hand across the keys. They are all out of tune, but he plucks out a jaunty little number anyway and then Atsumu’s singing and the moon rises, a pink sliver like a cut peach in the sky.The first shrinekeeper: Kita Shinsuke





	round midnight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sportsfest 2018 Bonus Round 3: Superlatives | [originally posted here](https://sportsfest.dreamwidth.org/10320.html?thread=1778512#cmt1778512)

_it’s only a paper moon  
_ It’s rare in Shinjuku _ni-chome_ to find a joint this run-down, paint peeling off the walls and the damp seeping in every corner with exposed pipes, but Shinsuke’s always had a nose for the dispossesed. He buys it in the springtime for a song and a blessing, the former given away freely, the latter a hand he presses to the door and a cup of tea he spills across the threshold. Carefully, deliberately, he gets on his hands and knees and wipes it up. Osamu dusts off the lid of the piano and runs the back of his hand across the keys. They are all out of tune, but he plucks out a jaunty little number anyway and then Atsumu’s singing and the moon rises, a pink sliver like a cut peach in the sky. As Shinsuke sits back on his heels, he looks up and thinks: he could keep a place like this.

 _memories always start ‘round midnight  
_ The wind blew them inland from Kobe, where they’d lost their last home to the development of another artificial island. It washed them up on the shores of another kind of sea, flooded with neon lights and billboards and beautiful people. Shinsuke sets up the bar in warm shades of summer and _torii_ -red framing the door, just like a temple many mountains away, but instead of a god and an altar, there’s a stage with a lone standing microphone. From behind the counter, Shinsuke wipes glasses, pours whisky, and listens to secrets; Atsumu drinks in the spotlight, his smile brighter than ever before. It is Osamu, unused to crowded spaces, who leaves one balmy evening, after he finishes tuning the piano at last and the first clear note rings out in the bar. Shinsuke feels all the hair on his arm stand on end, and when he turns, Osamu’s back is framed in the setting sun.

 _when autumn leaves start to fall  
_ Sweeping the floor is always the same work, whether the ashes come from joss sticks or cigarettes. Shinsuke does this in the daytime, for faith has changed over the years; people do not make their pilgrimages when the sun is up anymore, but the prayers they make at night are so much more powerful. Shinsuke learned this, many lifetimes ago. He has not survived this long by clinging to the past, though he is the only one who still carries a memory or two, who looks back sometimes. _To be a shrinekeeper is a lonely burden, Shin-chan_ , his grandmother once told him, and he had looked back at her and said, _I’m not lonely._ Atsumu does not ask Shinsuke if he misses Osamu. He sings sad, soulful ballads, and leaves the roses people give him outside Shinsuke’s door. They are never complete, always with petals missing, plucked and eaten, but Atsumu is kind in his own way. Shinsuke, too, can be patient. He has his own faith to hold close to his heart.

 _stay, little valentine, stay  
_ The snow is falling when he comes back. They do not hibernate, but sometimes, humans do when it gets cold, and so the crowd is small and intimate and Atsumu is at the microphone, and Shinsuke’s cuffs are rolled down unfastened as he takes a seat at the piano. There is a draft whispering through the windows and a smoky hush that curls round the stage, as if it’s a fireplace, as if Atsumu’s voice is slow burning embers. There’s a glass of red wine perched on top of the piano, ripples vibrating softly across its surface. As Atsumu sings of love and Shinsuke’s hands run over the keys, rising to a crescendo, he feels the wind at his neck and looks up to see the front door open, a figure with snow in his grey hair shuffling off his shoes at the welcome mat. It is quiet now and he is not here to pray. He is not here to give an offering. From across the bar, his eyes meet Shinsuke’s, and they say, _I have returned to claim my altar, and you, my priest._

**Author's Note:**

> gogoshiki on DW did a beautiful remix artwork of this fill, please [check it out here!](https://sportsfest.dreamwidth.org/7730.html?thread=1946930#cmt1946930)


End file.
